AGAIN 

THE  MIRACLE  OF  THE  MARNE 


By 

HERBERT  S.  HOUSTON 


fswmtTY  Of  ILL 


iTT  3 


Reprinted  from  the  World’s  Work  for  September,  1920, 
by  permission  of  the  publishers.  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co! 


In  May  of  this  year  Mr.  Houston,  one  of  the  publishers 
of  the  World’s  Work,  was  in  Paris  when  reports  were 
being  received  from  official  and  other  important  sources  in 
America  that  France  was  not  at  work.  He  determined  to 
learn  the  truth  about  these  reports,  which  were  sorely  per¬ 
plexing  and  disturbing  the  French,  through  a  first-hand 
study  of  the  situation;  this  article  is  the  result.  In  addition 
to  personal  data  and  observation  it  is  based  on  recent 
official  facts  and  documents. 


The  Publishers  of  the  World’s  Work  have  departed  from  their  estab¬ 
lished  policy  and  permitted  the  publication  of  this  article  because  of 
their  desire  to  spread  the  truth  about  France. 


l-l  ^ 


AGAIN 

“THE  MIRACLE 
OF 

THE  MARNE” 


France’s  Victory  of  Peace  in  Her  Work  of  Reconstruction 
Facts  Which  Nail  the  Lie  That  Her  People  Are  Not  Working 


By  HERBERT  S.  HOUSTON 


WHEN  Maurice  Barres  wrote 
his  remarkable  book  on 
“The  Soul  of  France”  in 
the  second  year  of  the  war 
he  said  that  that  Soul  was  in 
the  hearts  of  the  millions  who  had  rushed  to 
the  colors.  It  was  their  faith  and  courage  that 
sustained  the  faith  and  courage  of  those  for 
whom  they  fought.  And  the  France  of  to-day,^ 
struggling  with  the  seemingly  superhuman 
task  of  lifting  herself  from  the  ashes  of  ruin, 
seems  to  be  sustained  by  that  same  army, 
especially  by  that  invisible  army  of  nearly  a 
million  and  a  half  of  her  sons  who  sleep  in  her 
soil. 

The  Princess  de  Polignac,  with  her  fatherless 
children  around  her,  said  to  me  in  Rheims: 
“We  widows  of  the  war  feel  that  we  have  a 
sacred  trust,  from  those  who  died,  to  rebuild 
France — for  it  was  for  France  that  they  gave 
all.”  That  is  the  Soul  of  France  in  these  hard 
months  that  have  followed  the  Armistice,  just 
as  it  was  in  the  fifty  months  of  war. 

How  has  France  given  “outward  and  visible” 
evidences  of  this  faith?  The  story  of  it  is  an¬ 
other  miracle  of  the  Marne.  These  seem  to  be 


strong  words,  but  nothing  less  sweeping  is 
adequate.  And  these  words  are  written  in 
balance  sheets,  in  careful  surveys,  and  in  official 
reports  quite  as  clearly  as  they  are  across  the 
face  of  France  all  the  way  from  the  Pyrenees  to 
the  Channel  ports.  Indeed  it  was  with  some 
doubt  that  the  writer,  after  covering  that  dis¬ 
tance  during  May,  all  by  daylight,  sought 
figures,  in  the  fear  that  they  might  belie  the 
impressionistic  picture  that  he  had  wondered 
at  as  it  was  disclosed  before  him.  But  the 
figures  supplied  the  detail  and  definition  which 
the  picture  lacked.  France  to-day  presents 
a  greater  and  more  glorious  canvas  than  any 
that  hangs  in  the  Louvre — it  is  herself. 

As  Kipling  in  London,  with  his  eyes  glowing 
as  they  must  have  glowed  when  he  wrote 
“France,  beloved  of  every  soul  that  loves  its 
fellow-kind!”  said,  “that  picture  of  France 
every  one  in  England  and  America  ought  to 
see.”  But  unluckily  that  isn’t  possible.  And 
photographs  are  wholly  inadequate.  So  too 
are  either  written  descriptions  or  statistics. 
There  is  that  Soul  of  France  in  it  all,  that  no 
camera  or  pen  can  get.  But  photograph, 
description,  and  fact  appear  to  be  the  only 


.1 


A  NEW  ROAD 
Roads  as  well  as  fac¬ 
tories  and  villages  were 
utterly  destroyed.  But. 
everywhere  through 
the  devastated  area  the 
roads  are  being  recon¬ 
structed,  and  are  evi¬ 
dence  of  the  determin¬ 
ation  of  the  French  to 
reclaim  the  desert  left 
by  the  Germans 


MISS  ANNE  MOR¬ 
GAN  (STANDING) 
AND  MRS.  A.  M. 

DIKE 

These  two  American 
women  have  been  very 
energetic  in  their  work 
with  the  Committee 
for  Devastated  France. 
Their  activity  is  in  the 
devastated  area,  and 
has  aided  greatly  in  the 
work  of  reconstruction 


HOME 

Temporarily  a  family 
has  made  their  resi¬ 
dence  in  a  dugout,  but 
the  newly  constructed 
home  in  the  upper  pic¬ 
ture  is  an  example  of 
what  is  being  done  to 
house  those  driven  out 
by  the-war 


DESTROYED  AND 
REBUILT 

The  fiendish  complete¬ 
ness  with  which  the 
Germans  destroyed 
factories  and  machin¬ 
ery  is  shown  by  the 
upper  picture.  The 
lower  illustration  is  of 
the  same  factory  in 
Lille,  rebuilt  and  in 
operation 


•  k  •  '  «  Mj'iwjj 


REBUILDING  VER¬ 
DUN 

Reconstruction  amid 
the  ruins  of  the  city 
that  withstood  the 
war’s  greatest  fury. 
Slowly  the  city  is  be¬ 
coming  habitable,  the 
streets  are  passable, 
the  bridges  are  being 
repaired,  and  many 
buildings  are  already 
in  use 


RHEIMS 

First  the.streets  are  re¬ 
paired  and  cleaned. 
Then  follows  the  re¬ 
moval  of  debris  and  the 
sorting  of  usable  ma¬ 
terial.  Later  comes 
the  actual  work  of 
reconstruction 


( 


1 


AMERICAN 
CATTLE  IN 
FRANCE 

All  the  reconstruction 
is  not  in  rebuilding. 
The  live  stock  was 
killed  or  driven  off,  and 
the  Germans  are  send¬ 
ing  back  scrub  horses 
and  cattle  to  take  the 
places  of  the  better 
ones  they  drove  into 
Germany.  These  cat¬ 
tle  have  been  imported 
from  America 


MODERN  FARM  MACHINERY 

The  war  has  brought  France  face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  improving  her  farm  methods.  The  great jiumber 
of  lives  lost  and  the  vital  need  for  increased  production  have  resulted  in  the  importation  of  American  plows, 

tractors,  and  other  machines 


RECONSTRUCTING  THE  CANALS 

In  many  places  the  canals  were  all  but  obliterated  by  the  heavy  shell  fire.  These  pictures  were  taken  from  the 
same  spot  looking  in  the  same  direction  as  the  cluster  of  trees  on  the  right  in  each  picture  shows.  Many 
canals  have  been  put  in  operation  and  others  are  being  rebuilt 


REBUILDING  ON  A  LARGE  SCALE 


This  factory  and  hundreds  of  others  were  entirely  destroyed,  the  buildings  were  razed  and  the  machinery 
shipped  into  Germany  or  battered  to  pieces.  Already  many  factories  are  in  operation  and  others  are  being 

rapidly  rebuilt 


BUILDING  CONCRETE  HOUSES 

Permanence  of  construction  is  an  attribute  of  most  French  building,  and  in  the  new  structures  going  up  con¬ 
crete  is  widely  used.  Many  houses  and  barns,  bridges  and  culverts  are  being  “poured” 


Again  “The  Miracle  of  the  Marne” 


substitutes  for  the  most  depressing,  and  at  the 
same  time,  the  most  cheerful  journey  that  can 
be  taken  by  any  one.  Kipling’s  earnest  in¬ 
junction  to  visit  France  will  be  repeated  by 
everyone  who  has  seen  France  in  these  heroic 
days  of  1920. 

Let  us  first  look  at  a  few  facts,  making  these 
the  pigment  for  the  picture.  At  the  Sorbonne  a 
few  weeks  ago,  the  Minister  of  the  Liberated 
Regions,  M.  Ogier,  in  a  written  address  gave 
these  astonishing  figures:  France,  since  the 
signing  of  the  Versailles  Treaty,  has  advanced 
to  the  people  of  the  devastated  departments 
9,609,082,916  francs  for  agricultural  and  in¬ 
dustrial  reconstruction.  With  this  govern¬ 
ment  support,  the  inhabitants  of  those  de¬ 
partments  have  bent  their  backs  to  the  task, 
aided  by  every  sou  they  could  get  themselves, 
and  reopened  5,345  out  of  the  6,445  schools 
that  were  in  these  regions  before  the  war; 
having  in  their  blood  that  inheritance  of  the 
eternal  life  of  the  family,  they  have  built  or 
rebuilt  28,200  temporary  dwellings  in  wood  and 
16,800  permanent  dwellings  in  stone,  in  addi¬ 
tion  to  erecting  28,500  wooden  barracks  to  re¬ 
place  houses  destroyed. 

Even  before  these  dwellings  and  schools  were 
rebuilt  the  cultivation  of  the  land  was  begun. 
And  what  an  insuperable  undertaking  this  ap¬ 
peared  to  be — to-day  the  wire  entanglements 
on  a  good  deal  of  the  land  remind  one  of  the 
cactus  plains  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico. 
But  the  pigment  of  fact  again  enables  us  to  put 
in  the  picture  the  luminous  detail  that,  of  the 
3,550,000  hectares  of  land  (a  hectare  is  about 
two  and  a  half  acres)  rendered  unfit  for  cultiva¬ 
tion  by  the  war,  3,339,000  hectares  have  been 
cleared  of  projectiles  and  2,780,000  hectares 
have  been  cleared  of  barbed  wire  and  all 
trenches  in  the  same  area  have  been  filled  in. 

TIRELESS  HOURS  OF  WORK 

Nature  has  smiled  generously  on  these 
scarred  and  all  but  destroyed  fields,  coop- 
eratingwith  these  brave  French  who  are  showing 
the  world  how  uncomplainingly  they  can  help 
themselves.  Traveling  over  miles  of  farm 
lands,  in  the  department  of  the  Ain,  during 
May,  they  might  have  been  mistaken  for  the 
flat  farms  of  Illinois  and  Kansas,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  infrequency  of  houses  and  the  poor 
character  of  those  that  were  seen.  And  there 
was  another  difference,  even  more  marked — 
American  farmers  complain  that  their  “hired 
men”  insist  on  practically  union  hours,  but  the 


sons  and  daughters  of  France  work  from  day¬ 
break  until  dusk.  It  was  nearly  twilight,  as 
the  car  sped  along  from  St.  Quentin  and  the 
great  cathedral  at  Laon  was  looming  on  its 
hill,  but  the  tireless  souls  in  the  fields  were  still 
bending  to  their  toil. 

The  lie  that  France  is  not  at  work  should  be 
seared  on  the  lips  of  every  one  who  utters  it. 

If  she  is  not  at  work  how  can  she  be  reclaim¬ 
ing  her  fields,  rebuilding  her  roads  and  houses 
and  factories  and  towns,  and  reestablishing  the 
shattered  life  over  one  fifth  of  her  territory? 
That  she  is  doing  this,  any  one  can  see  who 
visits  France  or  who  takes  the  small  trouble  to 
look  up  the  facts.  And  she  is  doing  it  before 
she  has  received  the  indemnity  pledged  to  her 
by  the  Peace  Treaty  and  re-pledged  again  and 
again  by  every  one  of  her  allies.  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  made  an  electoral  campaign  after  the 
Armistice  on  the  promise  that  Germany 
would  be  compelled  to  pay  the  entire 
cost  of  the  war,  including  full  indemnity  to 
France.  President  Wilson  included  in  the 
fourteen  points,  on  which  Germany  struck  her 
colors  and  sued  for  peace,  one  which  stipu¬ 
lated  “  restoration  of  all  invaded  portions  of 
French  territory.”  The  Treaty  itself  em¬ 
bodied  this  stipulation  in  the  clearest  terms. 
France  surely  had  no  reason  to  believe  that  the 
Versailles  Treaty  was  to  be  “another  scrap  of 
paper.”  But  it  took  the  conferences  of  San 
Remo,  Hythe,  and  Spa  before  the  foundation 
guaranty  of  the  Treaty  in  regard  to  German 
disarmament  was  supported  by  even  the  prom¬ 
ise  of  fulfillment — “after  six  months.”  In 
Paris,  Frenchmen  of  such  widely  differing 
views  as  Clemenceau,  Bourgeois,  Tardieu, 
Lauzanne,  and  Baron  d’Estournelle  de  Con¬ 
stant  expressed  a  common  view  on  this  shock¬ 
ing  delay,  in  practically  these  words:  “Why 
should  France  be  expected  to  acquiesce  in  the 
economic  restoration  of  Germany  unless  and 
until  the  Treaty’s  basic  guaranty  of  Ger¬ 
many’s  disarmament  has  been  carried  out?” 
There  was  no  bitterness  in  the  words  or  any 
sound  of  revanche  in  them.  But  they  came 
deep  from  the  soul  of  France,  expressing  an 
unconquerable  common  determination  —  the 
determination  that  “it  must  never  happen 
again.” 

At  Spa,  Millerand’s  tempefate,  even  sym¬ 
pathetic  speech  showed  that  France  was 
seeking  no  “pound  of  flesh.”  She  had  no  wish 
to  crush  Germany,  but,  as  her  sturdy  Premier 
put  it,  she  was  willing  to  cooperate  in  restoring 


Herbert  S.  Houston 


her  industries  if  Germany  went  forward,  meet¬ 
ing  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  as  she  had  agreed  to 
do.  But  behind  the  premier’s  honest  words 
was  the  marshal’s  baton  of  Foch,  “the  gun  be¬ 
hind  the  door,”  which  the  world  may  be  com¬ 
pelled  to  conclude  is  the  only  argument  Ger¬ 
many  will  ever  be  willing  to  respect. 

While  these  conferences  were  being  held 
France  was  at  work.  She  didn’t  wait  or  lose  a 
day.  Just  as  she  flocked  to  the  colors  to  save 
herself,  and  “the  world,”  as  the  Allies  reiterated 
in  every  tongue  but  German  and  Turkish,  she 
steadily  and  swiftly  returned  to  her  devastated 
soil.  Not,  of  course,  with  the  instantaneous 
action  that  marked  the  rush  in  the  tense  days 
of  August,  1914,  but  just  as  surely.  To-day, 
less  than  two  years  from  the  Armistice,  the 
population  in  the  invaded  regions  has  grown 
from  less  than  2  million  in  November,  1918,  to 
more  than  4  million,  approximately  three 
quarters  of  the  pre-war  population.  And  the 
return  was  not  that  of  the  prodigal  son.  The 
“husks”  of  debris  and  desolation,  in  this  great 
parable,  were  at  the  homeward  end  of  the 
journey.  The  “fatted  calves”  have  to  be 
raised  before  they  are  served  at  any  home¬ 
coming  feasts.  But  the  magic  in  this  miracle 
of  reconstruction  seems  to  be  in  that  very  fact 
of  the  home-coming  itself.  No  one  can  ever 
feel  what  the  immeasurable  love  is  which  the 
French  people  have  for  their  soil  until  he  sees 
them  reclaiming  and  tilling  it  in  the  de¬ 
vastated  regions.  It  is  as  if  they  knew  in  their 
hearts  that  the  soil  was  an  heirloom,  handed 
down  to  them  for  a  thousand  years,  and,  in 
turn,  to  be  left  as  a  legacy  to  those  coming 
after.  Some  Millet  might  picture  these  peas¬ 
ants  of  to-day,  in  a  reverent  attitude,  listening 
to  an  Angelus  beneath  their  feet.  For  it  must 
be  a  bell  of  hope  to  their  ears  to  have  the 
knowledge,  which  experiment  seems  to  have 
demonstrated  to  be  sound,  that  practically  all 
of  their  soil,  even  the  most  shell-torn  and  riven 
can  be  reclaimed.  H.  B.  Fullerton,  an  Amer¬ 
ican  Agricultural  Expert,  returned  to  the  United 
States  in  July,  after  two  months  in  the  de¬ 
vastated  regions,  confident  in  the  belief  that  his 
experiments  had  shown  that  nearly  all  of  the 
soil  can  be  restored.  He  was  sent  to  France 
by  the  American  Committee  for  Devastated 
France,  of  which  Miss  Anne  Morgan,  Mrs.  A. 
M.  Dike,  and  Miss  Mary  Aldrich  are  the  inde¬ 
fatigable  leaders.  This  committee  is  now 
organizing  the  Institute  of  Applied  Agricul¬ 
ture  to  help  forward  the  work  of  better  soil 


cultivation  and,  following  its  wise  policy,  it 
proposes  to  turn  the  Institute  over  to  France 
when  it  is  well  established  and  its  utility  demon¬ 
strated.  It  was  encouraging  to  observe  that 
the  American  work  in  progress  in  France  was 
carried  on  in  close  coordination  with  the 
French,  and  was  being  turned  over  to  the 
French,  or  discontinued,  whenever  that  could 
be  properly  done.  The  American  Red  Cross, 
after  doing  a  great  deal  in  helping  the  peasants 
get  farm  implements,  has  turned  over  most  of 
its  work  to  the  French  Red  Cross.  The  anti¬ 
tuberculosis  work,  begun  by  the  Rockefeller 
Foundation  and  developed  to  the  point  of  dem¬ 
onstration,  has  been  transferred  to  the  different 
departments  in  which  it  had  been  undertaken. 
The  value  of  all  this  cooperation,  in  building 
up  morale  as  well  as  in  actual  accomplishment, 
is  fully  acknowledged  by  the  French.  There 
is  still  much  to  do  and  so  keen  a  man  on  the 
needs  of  the  situation  as  Andre  Tardieu,  the 
first  minister  of  the  Liberated  Regions  and  the 
organizer,  in  great  degree,  of  the  larger  policies 
of  reconstruction,  said  in  a  recent  letter  to  the 
American  Committee  for  Devastated  France: 
“  1  hope  that  your  work  will  continue,  adapting 
itself  from  day  to  day,  as  it  has  up  to  the  pres¬ 
ent,  to  the  ever  changing  needs  of  the  territory 
Germany  has  ruined.” 

AMERICAN  FARM  IMPLEMENTS 

INTRODUCING  the  French  peasant  to  the 
1  great  value  of  machinery  in  tilling  soil  is 
probably  America’s  best  contribution  to  this 
work  of  reconstruction.  The  holdings  of  land 
often  cover  but  a  few  acres  and  the  peasant  has 
found  that  the  wheel  hoe,  for  example,  will  do 
the  work  of  six  men  and,  on  large  farms,  that 
the  tractor  will  plow  more  land  than  six  horses. 
This  is  a  revelation,  a  discovery  of  astonishing 
moment  to  him.  And  he  has  formed  hundreds 
of  cooperative  societies  to  buy  and  operate 
tractors.  He  has  claimed  the  wheel  hoe  for 
his  own  and  wants  to  see  its  tribe  increased. 

As  a  result,  to  a  considerable  degree,  of  this 
mechanical  assistance,  greatly  increasing  the 
producing  power  of  the  fewer  workers,  the  de¬ 
vastated  regions  in  1920  will  raise  enough 
crops  for  food. 

The  story  of  industrial  progress  is  almost  as 
remarkable  as  that  of  agriculture.  In  aiding 
both,  there  has  been  the  encouraging  hand  of 
the  Government.  A  manufacturer  whose  plant 
had  been  destroyed  has  been  provided  with 
credit  up  to  the  amount  that  would  be  re- 


Again  “The  Miracle  of  the  Marne” 


1 


quired  to  rebuild  the  plant  at  the  present  cost. 
This  is  practically  five  times  greater  than  the 
pre-war  cost.  The  Government  has  met  this 
difficult  task  of  financing,  simply  because  it 
had  to  be  met.  An  Industrial  Bureau  has  been 
established  for  the  devastated  regions  and  it 
passes  on  all  applications  for  credit,  does  col¬ 
lective  buying,  and  in  many  practical  ways 
serves  the  manufacturers  struggling  to  their 
feet.  This  Bureau  is  almost  on  a  war  basis,  as 
far  as  power  to  take  direct  action  is  concerned. 
For  example,  it  has  the  right  to  draw  checks  on 
local  banks  in  advancing  money  to  manu¬ 
facturers.  This  cutting  of  red  tape  has  had 
much  to  do  with  the  steady  industrial  recovery. 
On  May  first  of  this  year,  2,627  of  the  3,508 
factories  destroyed  in  the  war  had  resumed 
production.  They  employ  300,000  workers. 
In  such  industrial  centres  as  Lille,  80  per  cent, 
of  the  textile  mills  were  destroyed.  In 
Armentieres,  the  centre  of  linen  manufacture, 
all  its  forty  linen  mills  were  wholly  destroyed. 
In  Fourmies,  out  of  700,000  bobbins,  all  but 
50,000  were  ruined.  Roubaix  and  Turcoing 
had  the  same  degree  of  destruction.  So  it  was 
throughout  the  whole  industrial  region  of  the 
north,  the  great  workshop  of  France.  The 
tale  of  rebuilding,  now  to  be  added  to  their 
annals,  will  always  be  a  chapter  of  achieve¬ 
ment,  almost  as  important  and  vital  as  the 
defense  against  the  German  invasion,  even 
if  less  tensely  dramatic.  But  the  tale  is  not 
without  its  high  lights.  These  can  be  seen, 
together  with  a  vast  amount  of  fact  and  in¬ 
cident,  on  the  pages  of  a  book,  “  Rising  Above 
the  Ruins  of  France”  that  has  just  come  from 
the  press  of  the  Putnams.  In  it  are  gathered 
a  body  of  data  and  figures  which  supplement 
in  detail  and  corroborate  fully  the  views  and 
statements  presented  in  this  magazine  article.' 

The  rise  of  northern  France  from  what 
seemed  to  be  the  ruin  of  her  industry  must  be  a 
staggering  surprise  to  Germany.  During  the 
war  the  Germans  declared  that  they  would  be 
able  to  begin  the  manufacture  of  woolens  at 
least  two  years  before  the  mills  they  had  de¬ 
stroyed  in  Lille  could  be  rebuilt  and  put  in 
operation.  To-day  80  per  cent,  of  these  mills 
in  Lille  are  humming  with  the  cheerful  music 
of  their  looms. 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  COAL 

At  TH  E  base  of  this  restored  industrial  activ- 
L  ity,  is  coal.  And  there  comes  in  the  tra¬ 
gedy  of  Lens.  This  great  centre  of  France’s  coal 


mining  region  was  one  of  the  strategic  object¬ 
ives  of  both  sides  throughout  the  war.  The 
Germans  captured  and  held  it  and  then  de¬ 
liberately  set  about  to  destroy  it  utterly. 
They  all  but  succeeded,  flooding  the  mines, 
destroying  the  machinery  and  leaving  this  vast 
power-station  of  French  industry,  as  they  be¬ 
lieved,  wrecked  beyond  possibility  of  recovery. 
But  again  they  were  in  error,  as  Bismarck  was 
in  1870  when  he  thought  the  French  nation  was 
beaten  to  its  knees,  never  to  rise — they  reckoned 
without  the  Soul  of  France. 

Lens,  which  was  left  a  charred  ruin  above 
ground  and  a  black  and  almost  fathomless 
depth  of  water  below  ground  is  surely,  but,  of 
necessity,  slowly,  recovering.  The  chief  en¬ 
gineer  of  one  of  her  largest  mining  companies 
gave  this  clear  statement  of  the  situation, 
published  in  this  book  to  which  reference  has 
been  made,  and  this  is  typical  of  the  difficulties 
confronting  the  French  coal  industry  and  of 
the  unconquerable  spirit  that  is  slowly  over¬ 
coming  them: 

“  Before  the  war  the  yearly  production  of  our 
mines  was  4  million  tons.  We  had  30  shafts 
and  17,000  workmen.  Now  about  1,500  are 
back  working  at  cleaning  up  and  pumping. 
The  Germans  flooded  the  mines  of  Lens  and  our 
first  problem  is  to  get  the  water  out.  It  will 
be  pumped  into  the  canals.  By  the  end  of 
1920  we  expect  to  have  the  water  out.  When 
the  galleries  are  dry  the  cleaning  and  repairing 
will  commence.  This  will  be  a  slow  process. 
We  will  need  thousands  of  workmen  for  it. 
By  1922  we  hope  to  have  the  mines  producing 
and  to  employ  about  8,000  miners.  Within 
five  or  six  years  we  expect  to  be  working  up  to 
three  quarters  of  before  the  war  production.” 

COAL  PRODUCTION 

This  tremendous  task  of  restoration,  im¬ 
posed  deliberately  on  France  by  Germany, 
was  the  complete  justification  of  Millerand’s 
stand  at  Spa  for  coal,  even  if  the  Versailles 
Treaty  had  not  definitely  stipulated  that  Ger¬ 
many  should  supply  about  3,000,000  tons  a 
month.  This  was  scaled  down  at  Spa  to 
2,000,000  tons  a  month,  but  this  amount,  with 
France’s  increasing  production,  will  partially 
meet  the  present  industrial  demand.  It  will 
not  fully  meet  it,  however.  One  important 
factor  has  appeared  in  the  problem  that  had 
not  been  clearly  understood.  *-  Before  the  war, 
construction  work  was  carried  on  in  the  mines 
to  open  up  new  veins,  concurrently  with  the 


Herbert  S.  Houston 


production  work.  Since  the  war,  the  pressing 
necessity  for  maximum  production  has  caused 
a  discontinuance  of  the  essential  construction 
work — at  least  of  most  of  it.  This  situation, 
when  fully  appreciated,  could  not  be  at  once 
improved  because  of  demands  for  higher  wages 
and  shorter  hours,  labor  difficulties  and  an  in¬ 
adequate  supply  of  workmen.  But  in  the 
summer  of  1920,  progress  was  being  made  in 
overcoming  these  conditions.  Following  a 
careful  survey  the  decision  was  reached  that 
30,000  or  40,000  foreign  workmen  would  have 
to  be  secured.  By  the  end  of  this  year  it  is 
believed  that  10,000  of  these  will  be  at  work. 
This  increase  of  man  power,  with  the  progress 
being  made  in  restoration,  will  increase  materi¬ 
ally  the  coal  production  of  last  year,  which 
reached  a  total  of  21,863,000  tons,  of  which 
2,326,000  tons  came  from  the  mines  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine.  The  distribution  of  coal  is  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  the  Government,  which  pays 
90  francs  per  ton  for  it  at  the  mines,  adds  a  con¬ 
sumer’s  tax  of  160  per  cent,  ad  valorem,  and 
sells  it  at  250  francs  per  ton.  This  consump¬ 
tion  tax,  which  is  a  universal  thing  in  the 
French  fiscal  system,  produces  revenue  and 
equalizes  the  price  of  French  coal  compared  to 
the  price  of  foreign  coal,  a  differential  that  has 
been  much  affected  by  exchange.  The  coal 
problem  is  a  vital  one  but  it  will  be  met,  if 
Germany  keeps  her  treaty  pledge,  renewed  at 
Spa,  as  France  is  meeting  her  hard  task  of 
restoration  and  production. 

CONFIDENCE  AND  COURAGE 

The  revival  of  industry  in  manufacturing, 
mining,  and  agriculture,  has  been  revealed 
at  once  in  the  steady  improvement  of  the 
foreign  commerce  of  France.  For  the  first  five 
months  of  this  year  exports  increased  182.1  per 
cent,  over  the  corresponding  period  of  last 
year,  while  imports  were  only  17.3  per  cent, 
greater.  This  has  brought  an  improve¬ 
ment  in  the  trade  balance  against  France  of 
two  billion  francs.  That  way  progress  lies, 
together  with  the  improvement  of  the  ex¬ 
change  situation  and  commercial  safety. 

In  May  the  writer,  as  a  member  of  the 
organization  committee  of  the  International 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  under  the  chairman¬ 
ship  of  M.  Etienne  Clementel,  sat  in  conference 
in  Paris  with  a  number  of  the  French  leaders  of 
commerce  and  industry.  He  was  deeply  im¬ 
pressed,"  as  were  his  American  colleagues, 
with  the  confidence  and  courage  shown  by 


these  men.  There  was  nothing  quixotic  or 
emotional  about  them,  but  their  confidence  and 
courage  manifestly  were  guided  by  knowledge 
and  based  on  an  unalterable  faith  in  their 
country.  The  prescient  saying  of  J.  P.  Mor¬ 
gan  the  elder  at  once  came  to  mind,  that  fun¬ 
damental  character  is  the  surest  basis  for  credit. 

The  improvement  in  both  the  domestic  and 
foreign  commerce  has  been  made  possible,  in 
considerable  degree,  by  the  steady  improve-  * 
ment  in  transportation.  All  of  the  railroads 
destroyed  have  been  rebuilt  and  reopened. 
The  work  of  reconstruction  on  the  “Nord” 
Railroad,  traversing  the  devastated  regions 
and  suffering  the  greatest  damage,  shows  what 
is  being  done.  The  recent  report  of  the  presi¬ 
dent  of  this  road  states  that  of  more  than 
600  bridges  destroyed  473  have  been  rebuilt 
and  80  more  are  in  course  of  reconstruction. 
Of  three  important  tunnels  destroyed  all  have 
been  rebuilt.  Of  390  railway  stations  des¬ 
troyed  200  have  been  rebuilt  and  other  re¬ 
construction  has  made  similar  progress. 

During  the  war  1,100  kilometers  of  canal 
were  destroyed  and  virtually  all  of  this  has 
been  reopened  to  navigation,  136  wharves  that 
had  been  destroyed  have  been  rebuilt  and  28 
new  ones  constructed.  The  canal  system  of 
France  has  always  been  an  essential  factor  in 
the  transportation  of  the  country.  To-day 
it  is  approaching  normal,  just  as  the  railway 
system  is,  in  ability  to  serve  the  country. 

All  of  these  problems  in  French  recon¬ 
struction  get  back  to  a  question  of  finance. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  staunch^spirit 
of  the  people.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  unless 
it  be  in  the  minds  of  those  who  wanted  to  see 
Germany  win  the  war,  that  France  is  at  work — 
men,  women,  and  children.  The  world  which 
has  always  marveled  at  the  industry  of  the 
women  of  France  must  to-day  pay  them  the 
homage  of  even  greater  praise  for  the  way  they 
have  taken  up  the  crushing  burdens  placed  upon 
them  by  the  war.  Of  course  the  women  of 
the  nation,  old  and  young,  are  in  black  from 
Marseilles  to  Calais,  for  every  family  is  in 
mourning;  but  they  are  in  the  fields,  in  the 
factories — everywhere — doing  the  work  they 
did  before  the  war,  besides  much  of  the  work 
of  the  men  killed  in  the  war.  And  with  their 
thrift  and  prudence  in  management  they  are 
helping  France  meet  this  enormous  problem  in 
finance. 

But  how  is  France  really  meeting  that  prob¬ 
lem?  Some  people  in  England  and  America 


Again  “The  Miracle  of  the  Marne” 


are  saying  she  is  not  doing  her  full  duty  in 
meeting  it.  In  the  main  they  seem  to  be 
people  who  are  either  frankly  pro-German  or 
those  who  have  been  led  by  Keynes  and  his 
disciples  to  believe  that  Germany  is  a  far 
better  economic  risk  than  France  and  should, 
therefore,  have  her  industries  restored  first. 
It  may  surprise  some  of  these  critics  to  know 
that  a  comparative  study  of  the  latest  budgets 
of  England  and  France  shows  that  France  is 
paying  a  per  capita  tax  relatively  higher,  when 
relative  resources  are  considered,  than  that 
of  England  and  but  lo  francs  less  in  actual 
per  capita  amount.  Mr.  Paul  Doumer  lately 
submitted  a  comparative  statement  to  the 
French  Senate  showing  that  the  new  budget  of 
21  billion  francs  to  be  met  by  38  million  people 
meant  a  per  capita  tax  of  550  francs,  while  the 
per  capita  tax  of  Great  Britain,  under  her  new 
budget,  was  560  francs.  He  further  showed 
that  should  Germany’s  per  capita  tax  be  raised 
to  the  French  level  it  would  produce,  from  her 
68  million  inhabitants,  a  total  of  37  billion  or 
38  billion  francs  per  annum,  enough  to  meet 
a  payment  of  12,500,000,000  francs  toward  her 
indemnity,  besides  meeting  her  own  budget. 

Then  there  is  heavy  obligation  of  France’s 
foreign  debts.  Speaking  of  these,  in  the 
spring  of  this  year.  Premier  Millerand  said: 

“We  do  not  request  cancellation  of  our 
debts.  We  only  •’^k  time  to  breathe  and  to 
recover  after  four  and  one  half  years  of  ex¬ 
hausting  war.  Our  propositions  are  those  which 
any  debtor  would  feel  right  in  making  in  the  in¬ 
terest  of  both  himself  and  his  creditors. 

“  If  France  is  obliged  to  meet  her  obligations 
abroad,  at  present  rates  of  exchange,  she  would 
be  forced  to  pay  2^  times  what  she  owes.  Thus, 
after  spending  for  the  common  good  30  billion 
francs,  borrowed  from  her  friends,  she  would 
have  to  pay  45  billion  francs  as  France’s  pre¬ 
mium  to  these  same  friends.  Of  course,  that  is 
not  what  they  mean  to  require  from  us. 

“France  is  determined  to  rise  from  the  ruins 
accumulated  on  her  soil  by  the  battle  of 
nations.  She  will  be  able  to  make  the  neces¬ 
sary  fiscal  effort,  taking  all  the  measures  the 
situation  requires.” 

This  resolute  prime  minister,  who  has  been 
steadily  growing  in  the  public  estimation  of 
the  world,  has  given  a  fresh  evidence  of  his  own 
determination  that  France  hold  true  to  the 
path  of  restoration  by  the  prompt  and  coura¬ 
geous  action  he  took  during  the  railway  strike 
in  May.  By  his  vigor  and  firmness  he  ended 


it  within  three  days,  as  the  writer  has  good 
reason  to  recall.  1  was  waiting  across  the 
Spanish  border  in  San  Sebastian  for  the  re¬ 
opening  of  traffic  and  the  first  train  to  Paris. 
The  third  morning  of  the  strike,  traffic  was  re¬ 
sumed  and  an  interrupted  journey  continued. 
That  first  train  out  of  Bordeaux  for  the  north 
made  its  way  without  the  slightest  interference, 
because  of  the  strong  man  at  the  helm  in  Paris. 
That  man  has  the  confidence  of  his  country 
and  of  the  Allies  and  he  is  steering  France  over 
turbulent  waters  to  a  safe  port. 

No  one  who  has  seen  France  in  the  stress  of 
these  hard  days  would  think  of  saying  that 
her  course  to  that  safe  port  is  free  from 
danger.  It  is  tempestuous,  and  any  craft  less 
staunch  than  France  would  very  likely  go  on 
the  rocks;  but  the  land  of  Joan  of  Arc  is 
staunch  to  the  depths  of  her  Soul,  and  that  is 
her  strength  and  salvation. 

THE  GIFT  OF  DEMOCRATIC  JUSTICE 

France  has  been  a  conserver  of  civilization 
for  centuries.  At  Tours,  Charles  Martel 
turned  back  the  Saracen  and  saved  Europe. 
At  the  Marne,  Joflfre  turned  back  the  Ger¬ 
mans  and  again  saved  Europe  and  the  world. 
In  the  twelve  hundred  years  between,  France 
has  been  a  leader  of  thought  and  progress. 
To-day  her  ability  to  serve  the  world  is  greater 
than  ever  before.  The  world’s  need  of  that 
service  is  likewise  greater.  France  has  stood 
for  human  rights  and  for  property  rights.  Be¬ 
tween  these  two  there  has  arisen  an  irrepressible 
conflict.  The  Bolsheviki  sweeping  from  the 
northeast,  as  the  Saracens  did  from  the  south¬ 
east,  are  proclaiming  the  destruction  of  prop¬ 
erty  rights,  through  their  transference  to  the 
people  of  the  world  collectively.  No  narrow 
view  of  property  rights,  concentrated  in  the 
hands  of  the  few,  can  hope  to  prevail  in  any 
coming  battle  of  Tours.  France  has  more 
property  owners,  in  proportion  to  her  popula¬ 
tion,  than  any  country  in  the  world.  She  has 
more  investors.  She  has  democratized  prop¬ 
erty  rights  so  they  are  practically  coextensive 
with  human  rights.  By  making  the  two  virtu¬ 
ally  interchangeable  she  has  protected  both. 
France  has  pointed  the  one  safe  way  to  main¬ 
tain  the  rights  of  private  property.  Within  her 
borders  those  rights  are  universally  exercised 
and  enjoyed;  and  because  of  that  they  are  uni¬ 
versally  defended.  France  has  a  greater  thing 
than  her  economic  power,  great  as  that  power  is 
— she  has  the  supreme  gift  of  democratic  justice. 


